Indebted to… Italy

Try this experiment: think of a word, any word, that we use regularly in English which has clear Italian origins before reading on.

Ready? It’s more than likely you’ve come up with a gastronomic term – a snap poll I took last week placed pizza, spaghetti, and cappuccino as front runners (along with ciao, which incidentally was originally a way of politely declaring ‘I am your slave’. You might want to think about that before saying it in the future.). There’s no doubt that Italian cuisine is one of the country’s most successful exports. For example, while you probably didn’t know that today is reportedly National Lasagna Day in America, there’s a good chance that you know and love the Italian dish itself, since lasagna (or lasagne in its more authentic spelling) has also well and truly earned its place on the list of Britain’s favourite dishes. Before we tuck into today’s layered lunch, however, it might be worth paying tribute for a moment to the various ways in which the Italian language has influenced English over the centuries.

Just one cornetto…

It’s hard to believe that Italian food really only became widely popular in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, the post-war generation was still so unfamiliar with pasta – which was then ‘not a widely-eaten food in the UK’ – that they were famously taken in by the BBC’s 1957 April Fool’s spoof documentary on spaghetti bushes. And yet these days the average Briton is likely to have a kitchen stocked with more than just macaroni and spaghetti: even ordinary supermarkets boast everything from a calzone (literally ‘trouser leg’) and a ciabatta (‘slipper’) to fettuccine (‘little ribbons’) and farfalle (‘butterflies’), not to mention ready-made sauces with eyebrow-raising etymologies, such as cacciatore (literally ‘hunter’, because of the use of ingredients that a hunter might have to hand) and puttanesca (from puttana, ‘prostitute’ – the sauce is said to have been devised by prostitutes as one which could be cooked quickly between clients’ visits). For dessert, we’ve embraced tutti-frutti (literally ‘all fruits’) ice cream, along with panna cotta (literally ‘cooked cream’) and tiramisu (‘pick me up’) among others. And these days a barista surely needs more qualifications than a barrister to know the difference between a macchiato, latte, cappuccino, mocha, ristretto, americano, and espresso.

If music be the food of love…

And so from food to arguably Italy’s second most successful export. Since the Italians led by example in classical music for so long, we’ve also inherited a myriad of musical words. Aside from technical terms used regularly by musicians such as adagio (literally ‘at ease’), pizzicato (‘plucked’, for stringed instruments), or scherzo (‘jest’), our conversations are peppered with plenty of other words which even non-musicians are familiar with. Finale, opera, and piccolo, for example, all look and sound Italian, but there are also anglicized terms such as concert (from an Italian verb meaning ‘to harmonize’), serenade (from the Italian equivalent of ‘serene’), and piano (from the Italian piano e forte, meaning ‘soft and loud’) to name but a few.

Viva italiano!

It’s likely that you’ll recognize the above words as loan words from Italian because of their spelling. However, there are still more English words out there with recognizably and distinctly Italian etymologies. Some of the more interesting are lava, a Neopolitan dialect word originally used to describe a stream caused by sudden rain but applied locally to the substance flowing from Vesuvius (our word volcano comes to us from Italian too); nepotism, which comes from the Italian nipote or ‘nephew’ (with reference to privileges bestowed on the ‘nephews’ of popes, who were in many cases their illegitimate sons); desk (probably from Italian desco or ‘butcher’s block’, among other possible sources); disaster (from the Italian disastro or ‘ill-starred event’), gazette (from the Venetian coin called gazeta, for which such newsletters were sold); bizarre (originally from the Italian bizzarro or ‘angry’), zany (from the Venetian form of Gianni, stock name of the servants acting as clowns in the commedia dell’arte); bankrupt (from the Italian banca rotta or ‘broken bench’); corridor (from the Italian ‘running place’); and the essential oil neroli (said to be from the name of an Italian princess).

Photo credit: Yulia Grigoryeva / Shutterstock.com

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Grazie mille, there are some italian words in the post which apparently are now used only in English (cognoscenti), but it is very nice to find them again.
Furthermore, as Italian, I am very proud to see that we are known for something better than our present govern and our politicians.

Mimunekcyndi

Nice! This was very interesting. I didn’t know some of those words. Keep posting things like this! :)

CousinJenny

…and just how many times were we told as children to ‘not run in the corridors’! Ha Ha Ha. I really enjoyed this piece

Reihane56_a

hello dear freiend :)
I m english student in my country
since i have received your valuable emails, as if you open the hidden door to a vast world of words and phrases of english language

thanks for all of your truly efforts

Isabelle Reynolds

Thanks Joanna – really interesting post. I’d always thought calzone were ‘big shoes’ – because of ‘calzatura’ (footwear) – will check with Italian friends, but I’m sure you’re right. Derivation of ‘ciao’ was a revelation! When did it come into regular usage?